


Honesty

by Charolastra



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel
Genre: Angst, Cancer, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, Medical Procedures, Men Crying, Wade Wilson Needs A Hug, just sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:41:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27954815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charolastra/pseuds/Charolastra
Summary: Vanessa could handle the jokes. The jokes meant he was managing. Coping—wasn't that what the psychiatrist had said? It was a coping mechanism? That part was fine, but she almost couldn't stomach the honesty.
Relationships: Vanessa Carlysle/Wade Wilson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Honesty

Wade makes her promise not to play something dumb at his funeral. No Nickelback, no Sarah Mclachlan (maybe, he said), no old 70s that didn't sound funky. He vetoed anything by The Eagles. Eventually he gave up trying to guide Vanessa in the right direction and made a playlist he wanted, for sure, for his funeral. He wanted a fruit bouquet for every guest. In the shape of... something Vanessa finally had to say no to.

He wanted to hide away.

He wanted to joke enough that he could build his picket fences with it, keep he and Vanessa in it, keep everyone else out.

Wade Wilson was going to die a slow and painful death. Everyone knew it. The cancer didn't respond to the chemo, nor the experimental treatment cocktail of pills or creams or anything else under the sun the doctors could give him. His body hurt. His skin hurt. How that could even be, he didn't know, but damn if it wasn't the most painful thing he'd ever experienced.

A million hot needles stuck into his nerves with molecular precision. If only he could drink during the chemo, he joked. If only the morphine pills did a little more, he joked. If only he didn't complain so much, he joked.

Wade joked and joked and joked. And really, that was okay. Vanessa could handle the jokes and his poor taste, had learned to weather it better than anybody because they had the same poor taste, really, and she loved how easy their back and forth could be.

Vanessa could handle the jokes. The jokes meant he was managing. Coping—wasn't that what the psychiatrist had said? It was a coping mechanism? That part was fine, but she almost couldn't stomach the honesty.

She found him at the dining room table one night, slumped over, hands clenched into fists in front of him. His shirt hung from his frame. Chemo and stress took a lot from a person, she understood—yet in the sparse moonlight from the window, he just seemed so 𝘥𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘥. The ridges of his spine were visible through the shirt; a dotted trail from his neck to the small of his back. When she came up behind him and slipped her hands around his middle, his lowermost ribs almost acted as grips with how easily her fingers fit over the deep valleys between each one.

Vanessa had pressed her cheek to the nape of his neck and listened. Wade may have been weaker, but his heart still thundered in his chest. She could feel the pulse in her face. The thrumming just under her hands. Wade hadn't moved from his hunched position except to fold a hand over one of hers on his midsection.

"I'm scared," he croaked. Vanessa waited for the joke to come. Scared like what? Like that time he did something stupid or other, almost got caught? There had to be some dirty humor waiting in his mouth to follow. Maybe this pause was him prepping.

Vanessa waited for the joke to come. And waited.

Minutes could feel like hours when one was waiting for something important. Several had passed when Wade's shoulders began to shake and his breath hitched in his throat in the telltale way. No joking. Just honesty. The thing she struggled with, because it showed how 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘱 this was. How fucked up Wade was, and there was nothing she could do to help him. Wade was out of jokes to hide in. Seeing him flayed open and bare made her heart hurt worse than anything.

Wade was scared.

Vanessa stayed with him into the morning, long after the crickets went silent and the crying stopped.


End file.
